


before dawn, a cherry pie

by fromaseance



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Diners, But also, But no intense proofreading, Crime, Detective Jaehyun, Flirting, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Lots of Intense Flirting, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, Sexual Tension, Waiter Taeyong, mentions of animal violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromaseance/pseuds/fromaseance
Summary: Inspector Jaehyun likes to spend his post-midnights at the local diner where Taeyong, the waiter, serves him food, company, and always a little bit of something that helps him feel less like the ground is collapsing beneath his feet.All this, unfortunately, while a serial killer is on the loose.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 46
Kudos: 235





	before dawn, a cherry pie

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags. Thank you and happy reading!

Amidst the soundless dark of the town’s after-midnight streets, the diner stands as the only establishment lit. A small, but thrumming oasis of light, towards which Jaehyun drags the four wheels of his car.

It takes him only a moment to arrive, the streets being empty as they are at this hour. The absence of traffic and the steady static from his radio lend a certain stillness to his surroundings—one so all-encompassing that the scratching his tires make against pavement as he slows the car down to a halt barely does anything to interrupt it.

It’s the end of another work day, he realizes, as soon as his headlights fall onto the wide, neon blue-and-red signage mounted on one of the diner’s glass walls, in front of which he parks the car. There’s a phrase there that he has never bothered to read until now: “Open 24 hours,” it says, and it causes him to smile, to revel in the almost automatic way that his shoulders slacken against his seat at the trite yet oddly comforting phrase. It’s the consolation, he thinks, that comes with things that are constant. Things that never change.

His headlights turn off with the flick of a switch. The rest, with the turn of a key and a wrist. Like that, the engine goes, and then the silence deepens.

Immediately, Jaehyun begins to think: First, it’s muggy. The kind of muggy that’s insufferable. The kind that coats sweat over the spots where his shirt clings to his skin the tightest. It’s to be expected though, what with the AC busted and the car at full stop. Something about a lack of freon and the car’s previous owner being bone idle on top of being the newly-appointed district sergeant. 

Jaehyun sighs. He starts rolling the windows up, breath hitching with every effort it takes to turn the handles next to his seat and the one to his left. This, as he continues to think: Second, and no doubt more important than the AC, why here?

 _Here_ —of course—to mean, in this shit town.

The answer comes with the wind, which rouses the rosary wrapped around the rearview mirror—its wooden beads inconspicuous in the dark, save for the way they rattle against the mirror’s surface. It had been a gift from his mother, in honor of his promotion to inspector and subsequent relocation to the dullest town in the vicinity, the latter no doubt a ploy to keep him from climbing the ranks. A quiet town meant less work, and less work meant less ways to pile up credentials. With time, however, this reasoning eventually lost its credibility, primarily because Jaehyun no longer thinks he’s in a quiet town.

No. Not anymore. In fact, it hasn’t been quiet for a little over a month now. 

With a shake of the head and a reckless scrape of fingers through his hair, Jaehyun rustles his fringe free from the remnants of the cheap, convenience store hair gel he’d slapped over it earlier, eyes immediately on his reflection in the rearview mirror. The rosary seems to sway with his every move, though he doesn’t get enough time nor attention to confirm this when, as soon as he casts a glance at the diner’s glass walls, he sees him.

 _Him_ —the doe-eyed, caramel-headed waiter, cashier, and diner-owner's nephew. Or, at least, that's what Jaehyun has picked up over the last month since he made the place the designated last stop of his late-night patrols.

Unhurriedly, without averting his gaze from his oblivious subject past the many lights and posters of the glass wall in front, he picks the radio transceiver up from the dashboard, then hooks fingers under his collar to loosen his tie as he speaks into the receiver. "Patrol's over," he relays, which is to say he’s addressing no one in particular. "No man-eater tonight as well. Just a bunch of illiterate, hormonal teenagers. Will send in the report tomorrow.” Then, after half a beat, “That’s all. Heading off now. Thanks."

The transceiver lands with a clunk on the dashboard. Jaehyun waits for a minute, for the reply he knows is coming: “Good work, Inspector Jung.” Then, silence. End of transmission. Nothing in the place of something he hoped would be there. Exactly what, however, he doesn't spare another minute contemplating.

It's that radio static—more than the notion of having worked well—that follows Jaehyun as he steps out of the car and walks towards the diner, his head bowed and hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. Only once inside the diner does he find a reprieve from the oppressive sound: in the doorway wind chimes that signal his entrance, the metallic clang of utensils against porcelain, and the canned tune of a jazz song spilling from the antique jukebox by the counter. 

The diner is emptier than he expected it would be, albeit certainly less empty compared to how it had been last week, before the town-mandated evening curfew was lifted. Aside from the middle-aged couple eating wordlessly in one booth and the homeless man camping in another, there's no one in the establishment save for himself and, well, the person who greets him at the counter. He ascribes this minute change to the fact that he came later than usual tonight.

"Was convinced you weren't gonna show up anymore," says the person—the waiter—behind the counter, who stopped circling a cleaning rag over the marble countertop the moment he took notice of Jaehyun's presence. His voice is, like always, hinted with just the right amount of playfulness, and Jaehyun takes the bait.

"Well here I am," Jaehyun says with a slow smile, right as he slumps down on one of the vacant stools in front of the counter. The seat's metal spine squeaks under his weight with every movement, but it does nothing to dissuade him from leaning over to rest his elbows on the countertop and prop his chin on folded hands. "Why, would you have missed me?” he asks, head tilting to one side. “Did the thought of me not showing up make you sad?"

This earns him a look of disgust from the waiter, who huffs and shakes his head in response. Jaehyun just laughs. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, this, right here, has become his favorite part of what he’s been more or less forced to consider his everyday. There’s no definite reason for this, or at least none he’s consciously aware of. He has suspicions though, of it being rooted in the almost escapist atmosphere of timelessness and placelessness that the diner takes on at this hour of the day. Yes, that’s definitely it, he thinks. Never mind the other possibility, the one that includes confronting his possible attraction for the guy who mans the place post-midnight.

“You're the one who came in with a long face," the waiter says, effectively dragging Jaehyun out of his thoughts. His statement is punctuated by the clatter of a knife and chopping board onto the counter—things Jaehyun didn’t notice him collect from wherever they were placed. 

“I did?”

The waiter nods, face sporting disinterest as he grabs an apple from the wire-framed fruit bowl near the cash register and raises it to his eyes, seemingly to survey it as he says, “Let me guess, car AC still busted?”

Jaehyun throws him a look. "You remember."

The waiter smiles, a hint of smugness gracing his features as he lays the apple down onto the chopping board and slices it into half. The sound his knife makes as it hits the board echoes around the diner, ricochets from its walls as though it were solid. “Of course.”

Now Jaehyun considers the person before him, watches as the waiter continues to chop fruit, not in the kitchen, but out in the open space of the diner. This detail strikes him as peculiar, until he remembers a conversation he had with the other almost a week ago, the one about how the other has been into baking lately but can’t really practice it while he’s manning the counter. So, instead of working in the kitchen, the waiter prefers preparing the ingredients bit by bit on the counter. Jaehyun even remembers coming to the diner once and wondering why there was a bed of flour immediately beside the cash register. Despite it being unsanitary, the waiter’s practice, Jaehyun decides, is desperate and therefore above reproach.

The knife to the board—and Jaehyun almost jolts. He strikes a question to recover, to redeem the momentum of the conversation that had been temporarily lost in his musings, “I didn’t know you paid me that much attention, _Taeyong_ –” Jaehyun’s eyes shift to the silver name plate resting snug above the waiter’s chest. “–if that’s even your real name.”

At this, the waiter chuckles, hands temporarily stilling over the chopping board. “It is,” he says after he settles with a smile, his eyes mirthful. It’s as if Jaehyun just cracked a joke he couldn’t help but laugh at. “It’s my real name this time. My aunt finally thought it wise to let me have one.”

“Oh.” Jaehyun blinks. Then, he finds himself smiling as well. _Taeyong_. The sound of it is new yet welcome in his head. Finally, he thinks, a name to attach to the person he’d been wanting to stop thinking of as a stranger or a mere acquaintance for so long. Finally. “That’s great,” he says.

“It is?”

“Yes. The name– I like it.”

Another chuckle, the grin wider this time. The waiter—Taeyong—shakes his head as he says, “You know, I could’ve just made my own with a pen and some paper… but it was fun watching you try but ultimately fail to ask for my name every single time you came here.” 

It’s a solid punch to the gut, but Jaehyun knows better than to act indignant. “I was just respecting your right to anonymity. I thought you wanted to stay a waiter,” he says coolly.

“Right to anonymity my ass,” Taeyong scoffs in jest. “You surely weren’t respecting that when you asked my aunt why I didn’t come to work yesterday, Inspector Jung.”

Another punch and, this time, it lands squarely where it hurts the most: his pride. Jaehyun bows his head and raises both hands to say he’s given up. He only relinquishes the act once he hears the chopping resume. “It’s Jaehyun,” he says, right after he tips his chin to look at Taeyong, who meets his gaze. “Just ‘Jaehyun’ is fine. And, about asking your aunt, I was just doing my job as, you know, an inspector.”

“Sure.” Taeyong smiles again, eyes crinkling. “Then, I’m just doing my job too.” There’s a fondness on his face Jaehyun hopes he’s just imagining because he certainly wouldn’t know what to do if it were real. But Taeyong continues to stare, and eventually Jaehyun feels himself shrink in the way people do when they wish to be invisible. In Jaehyun’s case, to remain, once again, a distant admirer.

“Your job?” Jaehyun scurries to ask, suddenly tight-lipped. Finding Taeyong’s gaze too intense to hold for more than a minute, his eyes trail back to the other’s hands. There’s a quiet, almost surgical precision to how Taeyong cuts into the divided apple, whose slices he is now carving to resemble small rabbits. Jaehyun watches as Taeyong touches and drags the tip of the knife in his hand once—no, thrice—vertically down the skin of the fruit, as though testing the sharpness of the steel before committing and cutting into the fruit, whose surface lets out a crisp sound at every incision.

“Remembering that your car AC’s busted,” Taeyong explains with a shrug. "Comes with the trade. I have to pay attention and pretend I care for the lives and the satisfaction of each and every customer who walks in here. To make their problems my own.” Another bloodless slice. Another edible, miniature rabbit. Then, Taeyong continues, “Remembering the horrific details just happens to be the easiest way to do that. I get to lend an ear and make customers feel good about coming back. Years of taking people’s orders and bringing it to them has taught me that people just want to be listened to. Especially right before dawn, when the night’s too close to ending for the lot of us to consider doing what’s right, which is, more often than not, going to bed.”

A predawn hush, which harkens back to the alteredness of the reality that Jaehyun indulges in whenever he’s at the diner, settles as he considers Taeyong’s words. "That's a heavy trade secret,” is all that he says for a moment, if only to delay the instinct to be sentimental about being understood because perhaps this is exactly why talking to Taeyong has become his favorite niche of time from his everyday, his routine. Jaehyun thinks, if he could choose to exist indefinitely in one time and one space, it would be here, in this diner, in this exact seat at the counter, in these coordinates that lets him be with Taeyong. 

Taeyong purses his lips. “I guess it is.”

“And isn't it hard? Always having to pretend you’re genuinely listening?”

"Sometimes.” Taeyong sets his knife down onto the board. “But I enjoy doing both. Pretending and giving out trade secrets. The first one so much I sometimes forget I’m doing it.”

A beat, then Jaehyun speaks, “Does that mean you’re only pretending to care for me right now?”

As per the unspoken rules of their dynamics, what slips out of Jaehyun’s mouth was only ever meant to be a tease, but it resounds as a question more sober than intended. Jaehyun wishes Taeyong doesn’t notice the difference or, in the case that he does, would be gracious enough not to point it out.

To Jaehyun's relief, Taeyong only hums and thumbs his chin as though ruminating his reply. “It depends,” he says after a generous pause, eyes looking at Jaehyun with a sharpness seemingly borrowed from the knife no longer in his hand. “If you’re intent on staying a customer.”

The statement—and everything it implies—comes to Jaehyun as a surprise, so much so that he lets another silence take over the conversation without a fight. A few yet nevertheless dragging seconds of it sits on top of his shoulders and chest, just above where his stomach is rioting less from hunger and more as a response to what Taeyong just said.

In retrospect, it's not so much the unlikeliness of the statement that rendered Jaehyun taken aback but rather the casual confidence with which Taeyong delivered it. Taeyong who, despite his willingness to reciprocate each and every one of Jaehyun's attempts at flirting, never struck Jaehyun as the assertive type when it comes to matters such as this.

Just then, the middle-aged couple from one of the booths stands up and takes their leave, rousing not only the wind chimes but also Jaehyun's attention as they walk out of the establishment’s glass doors.

"I don't think I heard you right," Jaehyun tries when he's certain the couple is out of earshot, not that their presence or absence means anything.

"No. I'm quite certain you did."

"Oh." Jaehyun swallows. _Oh._

“So, are you?” Taeyong asks as he wipes his hands clean and dry with his apron. His fingernails, Jaehyun only notices now, are clean yet ribbed, doubtlessly from having been chewed and bitten, as Taeyong has professed he is sometimes disposed to do. 

Seeing this, something stirs inside Jaehyun. It’s a feeling he didn’t think he’d be able to harbor in this town, not even in the presence of crimes he despised and had used as fuel to power through his days in the academy: a sense of overprotectiveness, he recognizes, but one reserved only for the person in front of him.

“Intent on staying a customer?” Taeyong prompts once more, hands on his waist this time.

It’s clear that he’s teasing again, which is an observation that gives Jaehyun both relief and disappointment. He could easily let them both off the hook, he realizes; could easily let them break away from the pull of the sudden wormhole that has established itself as the center of their current exchange. A shrug would be the safest answer. A “No” would hurt but would be expected. Anything but a “Yes” is instinctual.

But finally tired of this going on rather aimlessly for more than a month now, Jaehyun gives two answers. “First,” he says, and it catches Taeyong’s attention almost immediately. “I’m glad you’re still baking despite, you know, everything…”

“You mean my aunt thinking baking’s exclusively for homosexuals when it comes to men?”

Jaehyun nods. “Yes. _That_ –”

A snort. Taeyong crosses his arms. “It's nothing, really. She profits off of both _–_ me being gay and therefore being great at baking, that is.”

"Still–"

Taeyong waves off his concerns with a hand. "I know. Thanks, Jaehyun. Though, I _am_ curious. I wonder if you'd ever take action if I reported her for discrimination."

Jaehyun's chest swells. That overprotectiveness again, he recognizes, but catches himself too late. "Of course–"

"Kidding." Taeyong grins now, toying with the button near his shirt collar. "Though, I have to say: It feels good to know you'd come to my rescue, even for something so trivial."

There’s a laugh there but, after straightening himself in his seat and calming the nascent frustration in his throat because no form of discrimination should be labeled trivial (but Taeyong already knows that and probably even more than Jaehyun is aware of because the fact he can treat is so lightly speaks volumes), Jaehyun trudges on. “Second...” he continues, "I think you're right. About how… some people just want to be listened to, especially at this hour."

Taeyong nods, as if saying, _"Of course I'm right_."

Jaehyun brings one hand up to point at his face. “ _This_ –”

“The long face.”

“Yes.” Jaehyun pauses, breath coming out of his mouth with a quiver, only to see Taeyong urge him on with a look of anticipation. “It's… It's not just because the AC’s busted.”

If there's one thing Jaehyun has managed to pick up from his late-night patrols, it is the readiness to believe in unusual events and sightings. But somehow this skill fails him when he witnesses Taeyong's eyes visibly soften after he finishes talking.

"Tell me all about it," Taeyong offers as he pushes the bowl of sliced apples towards Jaehyun, uncaring for the loud scrape it makes as it slides over the marble countertop. "Appetizer," he says when Jaehyun shoots him and the bowl a questioning look. "I would've offered you coffee, but I know you don't like to take it this late or, you know, this early."

"Oh, thanks." Jaehyun blinks. "You remembered that too."

"Of course. Being a regular here means you'll be remembered more, especially because of that uniform." Taeyong gives him a once-over, one that lingers on the gold-plated badge on Jaehyun's shirt and—assuming Jaehyun's not just imagining it—Jaehyun's lips.

"That's a pretty veiled way of telling me you think I look good in my uniform. Don’t you agree?" Jaehyun goes back to teasing, at which the other rolls his eyes.

"I'm not answering that," Taeyong says. He moves away from the counter with a sigh, adding in a manner that says he could've left without an explanation if he chose to do so, "I'll head to the back for a bit. Just gonna pop your steak into the oven. But talk to me when I get back?"

Jaehyun nods. "Sure."

  
  


* * *

  
  


"There's a serial killer on the loose," Jaehynun finally says, though he knows Taeyong is already well aware of the fact, since they live in the same town and all, which means they both are witnesses to the serial killer's disconcerting transformation from late-night crime deterrent to local myth and prime tourist attractor—all of which happened in the span of a month.

It's practically in everyone's collective consciousness now, Jaehyun thinks. However, as with all things still under investigation, there's something more than just what floats as fodder for the general public's amusement. What Jaehyun knows Taeyong isn't aware of—and _this_ , he also owes to the local government's media suppression—is that the police suspects the killer to be _more_ than just, well, a killer.

"You mean it's _you_ who suspects they're a cannibal, right? Since you're the one holding the case," Taeyong says, unfazed with the lesser known intelligence that Jaehyun just willingly shared, free of charge. There's a look of bright-eyed interest on his face, which is reflected in the way he leans forwards with his torso bent, elbows on the marble countertop, and eyes leveled with Jaehyun's. "How did you come up with that inference, anyway? I mean, from what clues? I'm curious." A pop, and Jaehyun realizes what he had thought to be some anxiety-induced molar-worrying is actually just bubblegum. 

"Uhm," he starts dumbly, gaze pulled in and onto the black hole that is Taeyong's pink mouth popping pink gum. With a cough, he straightens himself in his seat once again, and says, tone more serious now, "It's... how we found the victims' bodies…"

"Oh?"

"They weren't just… killed."

Jaehyun pauses, less for a dramatic effect and more the fact that he doesn't know exactly how much he should disclose. The question of professionalism and confidentiality means nothing to him at this point; he knows he's done away with that consideration the moment he took off his coat and essentially made himself more comfortable when Taeyong disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes. Certainly, there's something soppy about building a home around a person's presence, even more so when said person has factually done more than be _there_ at the right time and moment, but Jaehyun takes it. He wonders not whether or not he's allowed to share, but rather if Taeyong would be able to stomach everything.

As if reading his mind, Taeyong says, gum popping after each pause, "Go on. I don't mind gore, if that's what you're thinking."

Jaehyun swallows. He rifles through the stockpile of case folders in his head, each crisp and brown in his memory, each with palm-sized polaroids clipped to one side, all a bleeding compilation just waiting to be renamed a testament to his incompetence: Park Jiyoung, 24, multiple abrasions, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated; Choi Seungwoo, 27, death by asphyxiation, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated; Kim Chaerin, 19, chloroform poisoning, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated—

“I heard the death toll’s reached 8,” Taeyong says.

“It has stayed like that for a while now, yes,” Jaehyun supplies. Carefully, he parses through a choice of words, clears his throat before adding, “But if Mrs. Song doesn’t show up soon, there’s a possibility that number’s no longer accurate. Her husband reported her missing this morning, said she didn't come home yesterday.”

“ _Fuck_ .” Taeyong shakes his head in disapproval, fringe falling over his eyes as he does so. “Just when the curfew got lifted, too. I… I can’t believe it – I _refuse_ to believe it. How hasn’t the killer been found? I mean, there’s no way they didn’t leave any evidence in the shed, right?” he asks, voice filled with so much vitriol that Jaehyun catches himself wincing as a reaction.

“No,” he says. He feels an itch creep over his spine, feels the need to hold onto something, and so he places his hands over his knees and squeezes. “It was… very clean.”

The shed, he remembers, had blood for flooring and bodies on meat hooks for walls. 

He remembers the day they seized it, which they only did after a week of relentless complaints about a stench emanating from what was supposed to be an abandoned shed by the town lake. The owner had died almost half a decade ago, the shed left to be more an ornament than a property—that is, of course, before they found out someone had been using it for purposes a shed should never be used for.

Bodies, Jaehyun recalls. Nameless bodies in different degrees of man-made deformities. 

Everything about the shed was shabby, save for the collection of butchering tools kept immaculately clean and lined up along its corners. Even the buckets filled with severed hands were organized neatly inside a makeshift freezer.

The bodies, Jaehyun's mind reels back. Wrist-less bodies hanging upside down steel hooks, swinging slightly this way and that as though still alive, still squirming the few seconds left until lifelessness, faces skinned halfway, smiles manufactured by a knife brutal in its dullness, one—no, three—red lines pierced into the skin where ruddy cheeks and full corners of the mouths should be.

"So a slaughterhouse, basically," Taeyong comments sotto voce. 

Jaehyun nods, finds that he has been looking at the fine lines that mark the palms of his hands this whole time.

"Any clue who it might be?" Taeyong continues, voice still low and subdued by restraint. "The serial killer, I mean."

Jaehyun shakes his head. He casts a glance around the corners of the diner, particularly towards the vintage jukebox that steadily hums jazz tunes he doesn't know the titles nor the lyrics to. Continuing to look, he also recognizes that the homeless man who made a home in one of the booths had somehow left the diner without either him or Taeyong noticing, which means they're alone now, safe from anyone who might catch a word or two from their conversation.

"We couldn't find the knife used," Jaehyun shares, hands curling into fists against his knees. "No whiff nor sight of possible DNA samples, too. Just bodies."

"It's obviously a boning knife," Taeyong says. This, as he reaches for another apple from the bowl, turning it round and round in his hand as he shines it against his apron. "I know this because my aunt had me butcher hogs at twelve. Took years before she figured I was the reason a quarter of the produce was always turned in half-rotten." Taeyong lets out a laugh, soft yet piercing in the silence. "She taught me how to butcher and sabotage."

Without prompt, he continues, "Skinning hogs–and I'd assume people, too–is bound to be easier with a boning knife." He conjures what looks to be a personalized, Swiss army knife from his back pocket, unfolds it and wipes the steel against the fabric of his apron before moving to peel the apple. "Once the hog's been dipped long enough in boiling water, the skin should pare off easily–" An apple peel flies from his hand and onto the countertop. "Just like that."

“I see,” Jaehyun says. He feels the impression of bile rise up his throat. He hasn't completely gotten rid of the queasiness, has yet to reach the level of professional desensitization which sees cadavers as only cadavers and not bodies with histories. "I'll note that down," he says, suddenly finding the bowl of apples in front of him unappetizing, so much so that he makes a meek effort to push it away from himself. “Thanks, Taeyong.”

“No. Thank _you_ for sharing,” Taeyong says. He starts to clean up the counter again, puts away his things and pulls out a rag. He only stops once the countertop is as spotless as it can be, save for the bowl of apples between him and Jaehyun.

“Hey,” Jaehyun begins as soon as he feels well-adjusted to the new silence. “That thing you said about people just wanting to be listened to. Doesn’t it apply to you too?”

Taeyong's mouth curls into a lazy smile at this. “I guess it does,” he says, eyes narrowing kindly as he props his elbows onto the counter once again. “I do have something I want heard, if you’re willing to listen.”

What happens next is an impromptu staredown, one Jaehyun doesn’t intend to lose in. His gaze finds Taeyong's, and he doesn't let go. “What is it?” he asks, ignoring the way his breath hitches when Taeyong leans an inch closer.

“Not much,” Taeyong sighs, and Jaehyun feels Taeyong’s breath fan over his cheeks. “You can even use your mouth as I talk.”

A leaning forwards. Another inch closer. “Then talk.”

At this point, distance becomes only a decision far from being diminished. A decision which comes when Taeyong says, “Because you say so.”

And, just like that, with fingers wrapped tightly around his shirt collar to pull—no, yank—him closer, Jaehyun finds out that what Taeyong wants heard can be said through the absence of words and distance in between pressed lips.

Taeyong kisses him like he’s been meaning to for weeks, and Jaehyun scrambles to kiss back, one hand reaching up to curve under the hair just above Taeyong’s nape, which he uses as leverage as he stands up just slightly to chase Taeyong’s lips. He has been wanting this too, he tells himself, over the mindless echo of _more, more, more_ in his head and in the way his fingers latch and pull almost desperately around the straps of Taeyong's apron.

There’s tongue and the clacking of teeth, a realignment of heads for lips to slot better into each other, _“Wait,”_ hands grasping blindly and almost knocking off the bowl of apples on the counter, _“Can’t wait,”_ an audible gasp, a push and a jaw being tipped upwards, the laxing open of mouths, wild fingers into wilder hair, a sharp breathing in when a bottom lip gets bitten—

Then the oven chimes in with a loud ding.

And, just like that, too, Jaehyun finds that it ends, albeit without his hair mussed and his chest heaving to catch his breath.

Looking at Taeyong, he finds the other in the same state of disarray, finds that the lopsided smile on the other’s reddened face is the only thing that assures him what just happened is right and, most importantly, enough, for now.

“I should probably get that,” Taeyong says, eyes bright and playful despite the bashfulness present in their hesitance to meet Jaehyun’s gaze. “Wouldn't want your food to burn.”

Fighting the basic urge to say, _"Stay and let it,"_ Jaehyun just nods, says nothing even when Taeyong moves to go.

But, just as he was about to disappear into the kitchen, Taeyong turns around, comes back and asks, suddenly breathless, “When you said you’ll have my back if I ever wanted to report my aunt, you meant that, right?”

Another nod, but faster now, with hands involuntarily curling into fists.

“And that goes for everything else? No matter how trivial?” Taeyong continues, eyes wide and searching.

At that, Jaehyun opens his mouth to speak, but fails when he realizes he has Taeyong’s bubblegum inside his mouth now. Strawberry, he recognizes. Taeyong strawberry.

“Geez, you turn awfully quiet when you’ve been kissed,” Taeyong comments with a soft laugh. “But I’ll take that as a ‘yes’?”

Jaehyun coughs. “Sure.”

Then, with another giddy smile, Taeyong disappears into the back.

What runs through Jaehyun’s head in the minutes that follow is this: First, he’ll take Taeyong out on a date. Second—which he belatedly realizes should have been first on his list—he’ll catch the serial killer. Third, he’s going to catch the serial killer so that the town will be safe enough for Taeyong and the others. Fourth, he’s going to catch the serial killer so that he can pour all of his attention into whatever is unfolding right now between him and Taeyong. Yes, he decides, these are things he can and should do.

The door to the kitchen swings open, and Taeyong comes back out with a noticeable spring in his step. A warm, homely smell wafts from the tray Jaehyun notes he’s holding, and it’s only when Taeyong sets the tray down in front of him that he realizes he’s been starving.

“Your steak, medium rare,” Taeyong announces as he lifts one of the plates and places it in front of Jaehyun with a knife and a fork.

The portion, Jaehyun acknowledges, is generous, as always—the raspberry sauce oozing over and under the smooth, glossy, salmon pink cuts of meat lined up gracefully around the white ceramic. His mouth practically waters at the sight and smell of it, as though it’s the first time he’s having the meal when, in fact, it isn’t; and this response is arguably a conditioned one at this point.

“And a complimentary cherry mincemeat pie, from yours truly,” Taeyong adds as he places another plate in front of Jaehyun, one bearing a quarter slice of cherry pie, whose surface crust has three modest incisions instead of lattice and sides bleeding a deep red from where the pie had been sliced. 

“It's a special recipe, so you better enjoy it. I made it especially for you,” Taeyong finishes with a grin, tucking the tray against one arm as he does so. Then, after a moment, says with a thumb to the kitchen door, "I'll just get my things from the back. My shift’s almost over."

“Sure. Of course,” Jaehyun says. “I can give you a ride home, if you want,” he adds or, more accurately, lets himself say after weeks of second-guessing the gesture.

“Really? I’d like that.” Taeyong bites his lower lip, looking as though trying his best to suppress another smile from claiming his face. “I’d like that a lot.”

“Me too.” Jaehyun fumbles with the fork, earning him a snort from Taeyong, who once again disappears to the kitchen after mouthing an ‘Okay,’ ‘I’ll go,’ and ‘Eat well.’

And Jaehyun does—eat, that is. He decides to try the cherry pie first, tells himself he wants to savor it while hot and not because he’s excited about the fact that Taeyong prepared it especially for him. Before everything, he pulls out the bubblegum from his mouth and places it into a napkin, marvels at how the pink gum has faded and washed out into a fleshy apricot before slipping it into his pocket. He jests about keeping it as a memento of some of the things he’s shared with Taeyong, before comically shaking his head in mild disgust at the thought.

Finally, he picks up the knife and the fork and angles his wrists just right to slice into the pie. It takes a bit of force to slice through the pastry, so much so that he has to move the knife back and forth to reach the plate and successfully cut out a bite-sized piece, all while trying to avoid getting his cufflinks stained by the cherry filling oozing profusely out of the pie. There’s a heady smell of rum with cherry, baked pastry, and something else he can’t name that wafts from the pie as soon as he cuts into it. And he realizes, as soon as he eats, that the effort from the cutting had been from the fact that the pie has meat—well, Taeyong _did_ call it a ‘mincemeat’ pie, he remembers. 

Finally, he takes a bite, and what greets his taste buds is the expected meeting of savory meat with sweet and sour cherry and bitter rum. Another bite, and Jaehyun decides that the meat, though tasting good, has a kind of toughness to it, one only salved by the silkiness of the filling, which has actual bits of caramelized cherries. 

Suddenly, however, he starts choking mid-chew. And it doesn’t take him long to realize that he had almost swallowed something characteristically hard. Something that tastes metallic, his tongue tells him.

With a finger he pulls out whatever it is that had him gagging, mindful of the easy way it hooks around his fingertip. Taking it from his mouth, it slips further down and around his finger. And when he squints to look at it, to recognize it behind the layer of crust and cherry-red filling, he sees the last thing he expected to be in his mouth: a ring.

A silver wedding ring. 

Jaehyun’s stomach drops to the floor.

Just then, Taeyong comes out of the kitchen with his bag slung over his shoulders. “We can leave the dishes for Mark. Says he's arriving in fifteen,” he tells Jaehyun as he moves away from the employee side of the counter to plop down onto the seat immediately beside the other. “So, I’m ready to go when you are.”

Jaehyun’s mind rifles through the stockpile of case folders in his head, each crisp and brown in his memory, each with palm-sized polaroids clipped to one side, all a bleeding compilation just waiting to be renamed a testament to his incompetence: Park Jiyoung, 24, multiple abrasions, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated; Choi Seungwoo, 27, death by asphyxiation, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated; Kim Chaerin, 19, chloroform poisoning, hands chopped, and lower half of face mutilated; and Mrs. Song—

“You like the pie?” Taeyong asks, and his smile is so sweet and warm that it renders Jaehyun wordless.

Jaehyun doesn’t answer, at least not yet. Just stares with the ring still dangling silently around one of his fingers. And he realizes, right as Taeyong reaches to hold his hand, the touch of his thumb stroking Jaehyun’s ringed finger tender and intentional— 

He realizes that in some cases—especially _this_ —he wishes silence could never be taken to mean, "Yes."

**Author's Note:**

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> 
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